But on the Debian installer I could not access the nfs.I tried dropping into a shell to set up the NFS mount:BusyBox v1.00-pre10 (Debian 20040623-1) Built-in shell (ash)Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.

Post by Shimon Lebowitz~ # mkdir cdrom~ # mount -t nfs 10.1.20.20:/cdrom /cdrommount: Mounting 10.1.20.20:/cdrom on /cdrom failed: No such device~ #And even if I did the mount, how would I get theinstaller to use it?I asked these questions last week on Debian-390, but that listseems a bit sleepy, and no one responded.

The S/390 Debian port, to the best of my knowledge, only does http orftp installs, not NFS.

If your machine cannot reach the outside world, you could set up amirror of the Debian pool on an internal machine.

It is our intention to produce a VM installer for Sarge as we did forWoody, which turns one of your S/390 guests into the installationserver; however, this one will come on 2 DVDs instead a whole bunchof CDs.

It's not ready yet--I've been very busy with other higher-priorityprojects--but if you'll write me offlist I can see whether a) I canjust ship you a DVD copy of the installation pool and give you somehelp configuring a machine to serve it up, or b) I can try to helpyou through a regular network install if you can get to the externalnetwork from your s390.

Since various fluids will congeal in some strange placesbefore our mainframe sees a public network, I will needto forgo option "b".

regarding "a", I don't know of any dvd I can use, the onlyone I have access to at work in on the HMC.

That leaves the original suggestion, setting up a mirroron an internal machine.When you say that I can use a s390 as an installation server,does that mean that my VM FTP server could do it??I don't really see VM understanding that CD very well.

What if I ftp up the ISO image, can that be mounted -loopby the debian starter system?

Post by Shimon Lebowitz~ #And even if I did the mount, how would I get theinstaller to use it?I asked these questions last week on Debian-390, but that listseems a bit sleepy, and no one responded.

The S/390 Debian port, to the best of my knowledge, only does httporftp installs, not NFS.If your machine cannot reach the outside world, you could set up amirror of the Debian pool on an internal machine.It is our intention to produce a VM installer for Sarge as we didforWoody, which turns one of your S/390 guests into the installationserver; however, this one will come on 2 DVDs instead a whole bunchof CDs.It's not ready yet--I've been very busy with other higher-priorityprojects--but if you'll write me offlist I can see whether a) I canjust ship you a DVD copy of the installation pool and give you somehelp configuring a machine to serve it up, or b) I can try to helpyou through a regular network install if you can get to the externalnetwork from your s390.Adam

Post by Shimon LebowitzFirst, thank you Adam for your quick response.Since various fluids will congeal in some strange placesbefore our mainframe sees a public network, I will needto forgo option "b".regarding "a", I don't know of any dvd I can use, the onlyone I have access to at work in on the HMC.

There's no PC with a DVD drive anywhere on the network? There's nolaptop you can attach to the network with a DVD drive? They've beenpretty standard in most PCs for the last three or four years now.

Alternatively....is there a PC running Linux that is both attached tothe network and able to see the mainframe? You could build theinstallation pool in place on it. I can give you a one-line rsynccommand to do that.... (You can probably do this under Windows justas well, but I don't know much about Windows web servers.) In whichcase: whatever PC you connect to your mainframe from also probablyconnects to the network, right? Does it have 10GB of free disk?Build the repository mirror on it, set up a Web server (this is whereyou fall afoul of your company's policies) and install from there.

Post by Shimon LebowitzThat leaves the original suggestion, setting up a mirroron an internal machine.When you say that I can use a s390 as an installation server,does that mean that my VM FTP server could do it??I don't really see VM understanding that CD very well.

Nope. But a Linux/390 image could. However, the CD isn't reallyhelpful to you. It contains a very basic system, and not enough of apackage repository to be very useful. Honestly you're just as welloff getting the kernel, parmfile, and initrd from the Debian site anddoing a network install. The problem is doing the initial networkinstallation, since you don't have a machine you can see that canfunction as the package repository.

Hence the suggestion to use a Linux-running PC: hook it up to thenetwork. Use rsync to build a local mirror of the packagerepository. Turn on Apache and configure it so that it can serve thepackage repository. Then do a network installation on your s390using that Linux-running PC as your package repository.

Solving this problem is what our Woody CD set was meant to do, andwhat the Sarge DVD set, if I am given time to finish it, will do:I'll supply, in addition to a package repository, a CMSDDR image of aminimal Linux instance, which you IPL. Then you transfer theinstallation repository to it (ftp, scp, rsync, whatever). Then youuse THAT as your installation source.

How soon do you need this? I can probably come up with somethingthat would work (I'd rather NOT do a 14-gazillion CD set, but itcould be done) for you, but I basically have to do it in my sparetime, which is nonexistent-and-then-some right now.

Post by Adam ThorntonThere's no PC with a DVD drive anywhere on the network? There's nolaptop you can attach to the network with a DVD drive? They've beenpretty standard in most PCs for the last three or four years now.

Post by Adam Thorntontothe network and able to see the mainframe? You could build theinstallation pool in place on it. I can give you a one-line rsynccommand to do that.... (You can probably do this under Windows justas well, but I don't know much about Windows web servers.) In whichcase: whatever PC you connect to your mainframe from also probablyconnects to the network, right? Does it have 10GB of free disk?Build the repository mirror on it, set up a Web server (this iswhereyou fall afoul of your company's policies) and install from there.

Post by Shimon LebowitzThat leaves the original suggestion, setting up a mirroron an internal machine.When you say that I can use a s390 as an installation server,does that mean that my VM FTP server could do it??I don't really see VM understanding that CD very well.

Nope. But a Linux/390 image could. However, the CD isn't reallyhelpful to you. It contains a very basic system, and not enough ofapackage repository to be very useful. Honestly you're just as welloff getting the kernel, parmfile, and initrd from the Debian siteanddoing a network install. The problem is doing the initial networkinstallation, since you don't have a machine you can see that canfunction as the package repository.Hence the suggestion to use a Linux-running PC: hook it up to thenetwork. Use rsync to build a local mirror of the packagerepository. Turn on Apache and configure it so that it can servethepackage repository. Then do a network installation on your s390using that Linux-running PC as your package repository.Solving this problem is what our Woody CD set was meant to do, andI'll supply, in addition to a package repository, a CMSDDR image ofaminimal Linux instance, which you IPL. Then you transfer theinstallation repository to it (ftp, scp, rsync, whatever). Then youuse THAT as your installation source.How soon do you need this? I can probably come up with somethingthat would work (I'd rather NOT do a 14-gazillion CD set, but itcould be done) for you, but I basically have to do it in my sparetime, which is nonexistent-and-then-some right now.